Rufus Opus

Posts by frredactumopus

Author: frredactumopus

  • On Fraternity

    Yesterday was a special occasion for me. I got to meet Jason in person, after a couple years of correspondence. I had a stressful week and needed to get away for a bit, so I figured I’d drive on up to his secluded den in the pine barrens, hang out, talk shop, have lunch…

    Jason said to me before I left, you sure you want to drive that far, it’s a long trip… I’m all, It’s not that bad! My wife sez, It’s going to take you longer than you think, you sure you want to go that far? I’m all, Yes I’m sure, it’s just a couple hours, no biggie!

    I can navigate a grimoire. I can piece together bits and pieces of Agrippa. I can trace Hermetic teachings from the GD back to Hermes Trismagistus.

    I got so lost on those highways. Towards the end, he was calling me every few minutes to make sure I was getting to the right streets. To go what mapquest said was 2 hours and 45 minutes took me four hours. I drove up and down this one stretch of highway four (motherfucking) times. The planned late-lunch became dinner.

    But let me tell you, it was SO worth the drive. We talked shop, he showed me his altar(s) setup, he taught me so much in the couple of hours we were together, and we had a blast. There was a feeling of camaraderie that I had sensed before at Thelesis, but was much more in tune with in person with Jason. One-on-one magical conversations can get a lot deeper than social settings. It was truly awesome. When I left, the stresses of the past week had been put back into perspective, and I was able to look at it all with fresh eyes, just by hanging out with a cool friend.

    Fraternity is awesome. I understand now why things like the GD and monasteries and retreats and mentorships form. They help. A lot.

    Oh, and Jason gave me this awesome cross with the ascended Christ on it, pcked full of Christian Occult significance. Dude has CLASS!

  • Still yet more East Vs. West Crap

    Some days I struggle with the supremacy of magical systems. Other days, I struggle with reheating the chicken legs or the spaghetti for my late-night snack.

    Tonight it was spaghetti.

    But I wanted to take a little more time to address the East West thing. My downfall in my attempt to prove the supremacy of the West was my ignorance. My biggest pet peeve with Western Magicians is ignorance. What ticked me off in the first place was the ignorant statement that the East blows away the West. What I loathe more than anything in the world is ignorance.

    Especially my own though. I went into this knowing the West can get me anything I wanted. I went in knowing that the idea that the East was more advanced was bullshit. But I let the comment piss me off. I took it personally, because I didn’t like the idea that someone could so nonchalantly dismiss what I do, denigrate it so willfully and … ignorantly.

    But whatever. I shouldn’t have taken it personally. Systems are what they are. Westerners are taught from birth that there are no monsters, fairies, gnomes, witches, or magical fat elves that deliver presents once a year to commemorate the gifts of the Magi. Who weren’t really magical, just primitive scientists. We’re trained in ignorance, trained to disregard the primitive and embrace the new-fangled, because it’s easier, faster, and somehow better.

    Most of the new really is better and faster. And niftier. I love the internet. I’m totally getting an iPhone.

    Anyway, I’m getting tired, and I haven’t even gotten to the point. We’re ignorant, in the West, ignorant of our traditions, ignorant of what “Hermetic” means, ignorant of the ways our cultural predecessors practiced magic. There are no monasteries where the teachings of Hermes are practiced. There are few magicians willing to teach or record their experiences.There are even fewer qualified. The palpable ignorance of western magicians is so extreme that idiots like myself who have scratched the surface of the potential of our heritage seem advanced. News flash, folks, I got K&CHGA three or four years ago. A couple months later I knew more than most occultists, so I thought I had what it takes to teach, or at least inspire.

    Hopefully I do, at least inspire.

    But I spent a while looking at the Eastern traditions. To the folks that think it’s better, I say this: you’re ignorant. Better for you, maybe, I’ll concede. But the systems of the East are simply being used. That’s all. The representatives of the East that have “supernatural” abilities have all spent years focusing on specific teachings. None of them have it easier than us. Spend five years doing nothing but communing with the HGA or a Goetic spirit, for that matter, and see what you walk away with.You want to say the Eastern systems have more to teach in their writings? Meditate on the Corpus Hermeticum the way they meditate on their teachings. You think their gurus can pass on initiations in ways that we can’t? Spend a week with me.

    In a year or so, anyway.

    The key is practice, that’s all. Just practice. Conjure a spirit. Conjure it again. Listen and apply its teachings. Develop under its tutelege. Get the attunements they offer. Pass them on to people to advance their progress. All the Easterners with their systems have on us is that they know where to look to learn.

    Here’s where to look if you’re interested in getting the full power of the Western traditions:

    http://www.esotericarchives.com/ – read everything there. Meditate on the things that resonate with you. Implement the processes.
    The Sacred Texts – The same.

    That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Do it to the exclusion of all else, devote a lifetime to it, and at the end of your life focus your power into picking up where you left off in your next incarnation. That’s all they do that we don’t. And hell, there are those of us doing that in their own way to varying degrees right now. Find them and talk to them. And don’t be afraid of your ignorance, or let it beat you down like I did. It’s a distraction, something to overcome.

  • Palpable Ignorance

    You can feel it in the air. I heard recently that Goetia is evil because a magician has to make a pact with the spirit to serve the spirit for a number of years after they die.

    Must … control … fist … of … death …

    I hear this shit and I want to kill some stupid motherfuckers. I think more highly of people than they apparently deserve. There’s no mention of pacts in the Goetia. Pacts aren’t even about service after death when they come up when you’re working with the spirits; they’re about making offerings. Covenants, like the one between Abraham and Jehovah, that’s the kind of thing you get with spirits. You agree to do something and they agree to do something. Usually it’s an offering of some kind, like a candle lit on their behalf, or their seal engraved on metal and left somewhere. And most of the Goetic spirits, specifically the ones from the Goetia of the Lemegeton don’t require offerings or anything. Most of them LIKE to work with you because it brings meaning to their existence.

  • More East-West Crap

    I think Jason’s right. And so are the folks commenting on the blog and sending me emails offlist.

    The comments about the Eastern systems blowing away the systems of the West came into my life at a time when I was also trying to help people understand how to do stuff in the Western systems. Much of the Hermetic Tradition is misunderstood, and the idea that the East is superior to the West annoyed me.

    As I delved deeper though, what I found was what Jason (and others) said, the systems aren’t that different when you get into the details. The differences lie in the vocabulary. It is hard in the West to pursue magic. I’d like to make it easier. It’s equally hard in the Eastern cultures. I can’t address that. It is alien to me.

    So for now, I’m going to back off the whole East vs. West thing, and get back to what I’m most interested in, expanding my understanding and the effectiveness of my magical system. I’ve had to re-evaluate how I look at things like the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, and Eastern systems of magic in general over the past couple of days, and I like what I’ve seen. I’m more confident now than ever that the “Western” systems of magic are as effective as the “Eastern” systems. I have more detailed things to pursue in my Work as a result. I have specific paths to tread that I didn’t know were there before, specific questions to ask spirits, and specific rituals to perform with my HGA as a result of some of the shallow reserch I did on Dzogchen.

    Most of what I found was tempest in a teapot stuff. Making mountains out of mole hills. Exaggerating the importance of what I was thinking because I didn’t understand what I was seeing. A little knowledge cann be a dangerous thing.

  • Supremacy and Completeness of Systems

    Jason and I were talking this weekend about some stuff. Basically, someone said the West has nothing on the Eastern systems when it comes to certain things. I objected because there’s nothing that I could desire that I haven’t seen something for in the Western systems of ceremonial magic. So Jason gave me some examples, and mentioned the differentiators between what he’s seen in the West, and what he’s seen in the East.

    After talking to him, I was bummed. He’s witnessed stuff that I haven’t done. Not only that, he pointed out that in the East, the person does the magic, s/he doesn’t call on a spirit. The effects they manifest in the eastern traditions come from physical, mental, and spiritual exercises that result in the ability to pool and direct the basic fundamental “energy” (specifically the stuff referred to as “Tao” in the Tao Te Ching, or as dang, rolpa, and tsal in Dzogchen, per Wikipedia) of existence into specific manifestations.

    I started analyzing what they do and seeing if there were comparative things in the western grimoires. I was hasty, I admit it. I didn’t take the time to look up what they were really doing, I just jumped into the grims with my half-assed understanding of some of the things Jason had mentioned, and I found some things similar to what I was looking for.

    I’ve done a little more research into what the Taoist magicians and the Dzogchen acolytes are doing. It’s all online stuff I’ve found, and mostly from Wikipedia, so I know it’s not like I have a complete knowledge or anything. However, please understand that in my youth I spent a long time studying and absorbing Taoism, and not just the stuff of the Tao te Ching, either. That’s social commentary on the side effects of the Tao, mostly. I’m not coming from a place of complete ignorance of the teachings of the Eastern mystics when I formulate my opinions and plans.

    In the East, they have a series of practices and teachings that are performed and meditated upon for literally years. In the West, we have spirits that we call on to accomplish certain things. Most Westerners don’t know diddly crap about the framework of the Western Mystery Traditions that form the Grimoires. Most of us have a concept of Kabbalah. A few of us know about emanation.Acouple of us (relatively) perform evocation. Of those that practice actual conjuration of the spirits of the grimoires, hardly anyone has a clue of what role the spirits are supposed to play in the Great Work, the morphing of the human from ignorant man to Hero, from mundane to a Power of the 8th and 9th Spheres.

    I’ve talked a little about how when you conjure a spirit, it makes adjustments to your personal sphere. Being in the presence of the Archangel Haniel, for example, will create a resonance between your sphere and his (some see him as a her; doesn’t matter, it’s got no genitals). You’ll feel more romantic love, more connection to growing things, and you’ll have a greater generative capacity than you had before. Things you touch will blossom, and you’ll initiate things in the world more easily.

    The thing is, you likely won’t even notice.

    I’ve done a lot of Work with Bune to get rich. It’s been moderately successful. I didn’t spend wisely, so I don’t have a lot to show for it, but each month I’m bringing in over $10K before taxes. I have a Spirit Pot in my office. We sit relatively close to one another.

    Over the years we’ve worked together, he’s changed me. I’ve attained some of his abilities. I now have the ability to bring riches to people in the same way he brought riches to me. I inspire people to see opportunities for wealth in regular conversation. In the last couple of weeks, one of my co-workers got a promotion and determined what she wants to do to make a killing in this economy, and has started already; several others I interact with have received bonuses, promotions, and windfalls. The thing they have all had in common was meeting me and interacting with me. That “vibe” I picked up from Bune rubs off on other people.

    Now, what I’m thinking is “missing” from the Western tradition is the basic understanding that the grimoires are starting points for developing spiritual attainment. They teach us how, in the West, to receive the empowerment, training, and information that the people of the East receive via various forms of transmission. They have unbroken lineages extending back through history to the early centuries BC, lineages handed down by people, information developed and refined in temples and retreats and in writings and oral traditions that we don’t have. They have mantras and yogas, yantras and whole vocabularies for spiritual experiences within their systems that we simply do not have.

    But we have the spirits, a legacy of initiation extending back to the beginning of time itself. We have the spirits of the Goetia, allegedly limited to teaching things of the material realm (I haven’t seen any proof that would indicate they have more versatility than that yet, but I haven’t really tried very hard either). We have the “Angelic” class of spirits, who dwell within the unmanifest Spheres of the Seven Classical Planets, themselves simply emanation points, reference points that we can use to identify specific manifestations of what we call God. We have the Spirits of the Pleroma, the entities of the 8th Sphere who sing hymns in silence and point the way to the 9th. We have God himself and the Logos, actively seeking interaction with all of their emanated beings of Spirit, Mind, and Body.

    I’ve experienced “supernatural” transformation of my self by working with the spirits. I know that the things we can do with the spirits are on par with what the denizens of the East are capable of manifesting using their systems. What we lack is a group of people that have done it and taught it to others. What we lack is understanding of our own cultural esoteric traditions. What we lack is devotion to Magic the way the practitioners of the East devote lifetimes to mastering one aspect of transforming the “Energy” of the universe into a manifestation of their “Will.”

    And every time someone from the West goes into the East, they are taking with them a cultural resonance that will have to be overcome to get the most out of the Eastern traditions. People like Jason can manage it to some degree, but even he returns to the traditions of the West. I propose that the systems of magic of the West are superior to the systems of the East for Western Magicians. We are extensions of the philosophies of our culture, and they are less alien to us, I think, than the Eastern concepts. I aim to prove it.

    I need some more people to Work with on this though. And I need time to develop some materials, some written lineage, and I need to get some more empowerment myself from the spirits. I should probably just work on myself to prove that it can be done, but I know I’m not perfect and will make mistakes that other occult researchers might not make. The more people working on discovering the power of the Western systems, the more people working on turning it into a living, breathing system of magic, the faster we’ll get anywhere.

    So if you’re already doing stuff with the Western System, blog about it. Post your results. Educate people. If you’re not working the Grimoires or traditional astrology, if you’re not reading through the Corpus Hermeticum and Agrippa, then start. If you need help applying the lessons, I’ve got a few tricks I’ll gladly pass on. Most are in the archives of my blog, but it’s easier sometimes to just shoot me an email. Post comments below, and I’ll get back to you. Get into the R&D of your system, base it on the stuff that resonates with your upbringing, and develop something cool already.

  • A Timely Reminder

    I’ve noticed lately that there is a rather disturbing trend going on in the world, a trend that I would like to put the brakes to, post haste.

    Keith Boyle recently manifested a point of this hideous iceberg that is set to sink our collective battleships. Some members of an esoteric study group expressed concern about having me host a lecture because they worry about materialism being evil, and my stance on materializing the Work didn’t jibe well with their interpretations. And Sun Trust Bank is showing commercials like this:

    So there it is. Do you get it? Materialism is now bad. Greedy people are to blame for the recession and depression.

    It’s time for a little reminder. It’s time, my friends, that we get our noses rubbed in something we’ve forgotten. It’s time, goddamnit, that we all take a look around at the shit we’re in and remember, yes, remember the truth we’ve forgotten. The truth that sets us free from this bullshit lie we’re being sold, the truth that gets us what we want in life, the truth that isn’t as easy to eat as the semi-digested pablum corporations are polishing and spoon feeding us to make us feel comfortable about how it ain’t our fault that we’re in this shit.

    The truth is simple. The truth is eloquent. The truth is this:

    Yeah, that’s right. Greed is GOOD.

    Meditate on the light all you want, pursue oneness with God, spitting in his eye for manifesting as the many manifestations we see every day the whole way up on your way towards that empty goal of escapism. It won’t bring you any release from this world. You’re still going to be ruled by your desire for escape. You’ll never get it. The spirit didn’t want to be One with you, any less than it could be. It didn’t want to be One, it wanted to be many, and that’s why we are what we are. And why did it want this? It was Greedy.

    Greedy for love, greedy for experience, greedy for pain and bliss and agony and joy. It was greedy for ignorance, it was greedy for the AHA! of learning, it was greedy for beauty, raw pure aesthetics in all their manifestations. It wanted, it desired, it craved, and it made us what we are.

    If your “Great Work” is a means to escape the pain of life, you’re fucked up. If your Great Work is a pretty veil over the ugly truth that you don’t want to deal with real life anymore, you’re fucked up. If your “Great Work” is a self-righteous judgment of God’s creation, decrying it as evil and worthy of hate and your despite, then you’re seriously, majorly fucked up.

    Keep up with the Joneses. Use magic to get what you want. Build a comfortable nice life. You can be spiritually enlightened in opulence as easily as a mud cave in Tibet. (Yeah, I don’t know shit about Tibet, but I said it.) It takes discipline, yeah, it takes focus, true, but why the fuck can’t you do that and have a home gym to work out on too?

    The economy’s in the shitter. People are going to be facing the hard truth that there aren’t as many jobs available as there were. I’ve got two jobs, one that pays me without assigning much work, and I just got a promotion at the other. There’s no excuse for you to be living in fear or in hardship if you’re a magician. If you’ve convinced yourself that the material world is evil and magic is some holy Work that somehow removes you from the daily responsibilities and should never be used for anything that might resemble greed, you’re doin’ it all wrong.

    And if you throw your money in a savings account, if you don’t take loans because you don’t know where your next check is coming from, if you don’t use that credit card, you’re personally ensuring the recession-depression will last as long as possible. You’re also demonstratig your lack of ability as a magician.

    Get a job using your magic. Do magic to prosper. Fix your local economy. This should probably be an Invisible College post. It will likely at least inspire one.

  • How to Conjure Spirits

    Agrippa is a great resource for all things magical. Using the tables of the scales of the numbers in the 2nd Book of Occult Philosophy, you will be able to put together whatever type of ritual you could possibly need.

    However, the details on how to conjure spirits aren’t in the Three Books. Instead, you find a basic outline in the spurious “Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy.” This ritual can be used to conjure any of the spirits listed in the Tables of Book 2.

    What you need:

    • Something to trace a large magic Circle with on your floor around your ritual area. This can be anything pointy or something that can make a circular shape. This includes a finger, wand, rope, salt, or spray paint. Please note, spraypaint fumes are nasty, and it’s hard to explain to your landlord later. Salt vacuums right up, and if you use your finger or wand, there’s no physical residue to clean up.
    • Pencil and Paper (You can also use a “pen”.)
    • A compass (the kind you draw circles with, not a North-pointing magnetic thingy), or something you can trace to make concentric circles (different sized coins if you can write small enough, or lids, or different sized canned goods, bottles, etc.)

    What you don’t need, but they’re nice to have:

    • Candles
    • Incense
    • Scrying crystals or a bowl of water, a pendulum, or IMAGINATION

    Some people would say imagination is a necessary thing, and I agree. However, most people don’t know their imagination well enough to understand how to use it in magic. Most people think it’s just something you use to make pretty mind pictures. Which it is. But there’s more to it. And the magic works regardless of your ability to see it in your mind’s pretty-picture-maker, so I’m counting it as optional.

    Now what I’m about to tell you is the bare-bones basics of how to conjure a spirit. It’s not complicated, and the main intention is to get people to realize how easy spirit conjuration REALLY IS. I have clients that want to know the details of how to consecrate their wands. That’s great! Empower your tools! (I anoint mine with holy water once in a while, and say, “Be thou cleansed of all uncleanliness, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” while making crosses over it. Sort of a baptism. It works great.

    But not necessary for Spirit work.

    All you need is love.

    Oh wait, that’s a Beatles song. I get that confused.

    Here’s the process:

    DRAW THE SPIRIT’S SYMBOL.

    Most of the spirits in the Tables of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy can be found with a little research on the internet. The Heptameron and the Magical Calendar are EXCELLENT resources for the seals of the spirits. If you can’t find the seal of the spirit, you can use its NAME. Written out in some script that you consider holy is good, but they also work in English. Somewhere some time, someone got the notion that some languages are holy by being themselves, and others aren’t. Whatever.

    You’ll need to draw the spirit’s symbol inside a hexagram, underneath it’s name. A Hexagram is a Star of David, made of two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down. Each little triangle formed by the points should be the same size.

    Around this hexagram, draw FIVE Pentragrams (five-pointed stars). Four of these stars represent the four Angels of the Corners of the Earth. The Fifth represents the Spirit you are conjuring.

    Next write the spirit’s name above these stars. In the Fourth Book, you write them in Hebrew.

    Next, draw an equilateral triangle around everything you’ve drawn so far.

    Next, draw a circle around the Triangle. It should touch the three points of the triangle.

    Draw another circle around that circle, about a half-inch or so out from the first circle. In the border you have created, write the Names of God. These Names will vary depending on your source. If you’ve studied the Golden Dawn version of the Tree of Life, and have performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram a time or two, and the Middle Pillar on occasion, then you should probably use the Names of God that are assigned to the ten Sephiroth.

    In my opinion, you can write IAO, LOGOS, Chronos, Zeus, Apollo, Aries, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, and Hephaestus. You can throw in Hecate instead of Hepaestus too, but I’d keep Hephaestus in there anyhow. Now these are Greek manifestations of the faces of God that were revealed to a set of people that were not given the Law the way God gave it to the Jews. Instead, they were given the Logos in the form of Philosophy and other weirdness.*

    Either way, or any other way, you’re representing in the outermost circle the manifestations of God that represent the different phases He went through in his emanation of the physical world. By listing these secret names, you the magician are pointing out to the servants of the Most High that you’re in on the secret, you understand the way things work, and that you’re an initiate. It’s like a badge that a sheriff wears. There’s no magic in the star of the cop, it’s what it represents that makes a criminal have to listen.

    You know, like in Practical Magic. With the witches. And the dude with one green eye that flipped pancakes. And the Romanian cowboy. From Hell.

    Cut out the circle. That’s your “LAMEN.” Wear it over your heart whilst you conjure Ye Olde Spirit.

    Congratulations! You’re ready to conjure. Yes, it is that easy. You won’t get the really awesome mind-blowing results that you get with a fully detailed rite that incorporates all the things that empower and attract and resonate with the spirit, creating a physical space that is so closely in tune with the spirit’s own sphere that manifesting is a simple matter of stepping through a kleenex-veil. You will, however, get the spirit’s attention, and the more you do it, the more you’ll be able to see him/her.

    Now, first thing you’re going to do is draw out the big ol’ Magical Circle. Look at the Goetia for a nifty idea of what a perfect magical circle should include. You’ll note that it’s basically EVERYTHING that is a God or Angel or Sphere listed in Heinrich Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. These fellows were REALLY covering their bases.

    In the Circle you’ve got candles in each of the four corners of the world for the Angels Michael-Gabriel-Uriel-Raphael. I base that interpretation on the Adonai written around the hexagrams (Adonai is Lord) and the Greek Tau cross in the center (representing the Earth, according to Crowley). Put those together and you’ve got the “Lord of the Earth” in each Quarter, and that, according to the Scale of the Number Four, refers to the Four Angels of the Corners of the Earth. It could be the Four Princes too, Oriens-Paimon-Egyn-Amaymon, but I’m more inclined to think Angels because “Lord” isn’t the same as “Prince.”

    You’ve got the Alpha and the Omega listed, referencing the Logos. Then there’s a square in the center in which the magician stands/sits. Around the square is written El (God name of Chesed/Jupiter) and Jah (God name of Chokmah/Sphere of the Zodiak). You’ve got Vav (Nail) and Hod (Sphere of Mercury) too. Put those together, and you’ve got the representation of the “Powers of the Sphere of the Zodiak being brought down by God’s Grace to his Messenger, the magician, who Nails it to the physical realm.” Inside the circle is the Tetragrammaton, IHVH, with the letters drawn and the names of the letters written below for good measure.

    In the center of it all stands the Magician.

    Can you see all the things represented in the Magical Circle? You’re standing in the center, where I would place the Divine Darkness from which emanates the infinite Light of the Ain Soph Aur. You’re directing the powers of the spheres of the Zodiac outward through the Logos and then to the Four Lords of the Corners of the Earth. You’re surrounded by the Ten Names of God and the Ten Names of the Archangels of each Sphere. And then outside that circle, you’ve got the Spirit you’re conjuring, compelled by Michael and the additional names of God to appear within the Triangle of Art.

    Potent stuff there, eh?

    Well, here’s a Secret for working with Spirits. It applies to all of them, even the spirits of the Goetia. The Circle that is all drawn out and detailed is not something that has to be physically represented. It is the image of what you already ARE as a human being. You were created in the Image of God. You took on Flesh to manifest in this world out of LOVE of this world. The Archangels of the Spheres surround you and empower you, because they took one look at you when God made you and fell in LOVE with you. You’re the Image of their creator. they respect you, and honor God by honoring you. They compel the spirits you conjure to come when you call, but even those Spirits LOVE you.

    But they have jobs to do, and if you don’t know what the circle represents, if you’re not consciously aware of being the Image of God, then no amount of paint, ink, or imagination arranged in any appropriate lines and circles and letters will save you from the performance of their duty: to drive you mad with desire for things of the world, until in desperation you return to your Source for salvation.

    Now, I know for a fact that I am made in the Image of God. I’ve had visions and experiences and transformations that have made the Circle of the Goetia become ingrained into my own sphere. I’m aware that I walk in the loving Grace of God and all that he has made.

    I try not to take it for granted.

    When I trace a Circle, I say, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I consecrate this ground for our defense!” You can say, IAO, LOGOS, and Spiritus Mundi/Spiritus Sancti if you’re not feeling particularly comfortable with the names of God from the Christian tradition. I strongly urge you to stick with the neoplatonic system though. You’ll need a representative of the Monad, the Intercessor, and the Spirit that maintains everything in your world, like the name of your Nativity Angel, Genius, Agathadaimon, or HGA. By touching on these three things, you’re retracing your path up through the spheres, and acknowledging who you are and what your status is. You’re affirming that you are indeed the magician in the center square of the Circle of the Goetia with these simple words.

    Well, I am anyway. If you’re not aware of Who you are, of What you are, and Why you are, you’d better go back and meditate on the Circle for a while, and get to know that everything I’ve said here is as true for you as it is for me. Or don’t. If you don’t, you’ll learn sooner or later the same thing, because all things work together for the good of those who serve God. And everyone serves God. Because everyone is, in a way, God. So there.

    Ok, so you’ve got the LAMEN, and you’ve got the CIRCLE, you’re ready to CONJURE the SPIRIT.

    Most Spirits have a Sphere that they are related to. Messenger spirits, spirits of knowledge, spirits of intellect, wit, and healing are related to Mercury. Spirits of Love, beauty, hearth and home are related to Venus. Spirits of visions of past and future, of gain and loss, of ebbings and flows are of the Moon. Spirits of boundaries and time are of Saturn. Spirits of enlightenment are of the Sun, spirits of mercy, grace, abundance are of Jupiter, and spirits of war, wrath, and justice are of Mars. You can find associations of spirits to elements as well, if you’re looking for things to happen on a mundane level without a lot of spiritual gnosis involved. Identify the traits of the Spirit, and you’ll have access to the Name of God that manifests the highest form of that particular class of Spirit.

    In the Scales of the Numbers, Agrippa lists the names of God for each planet, as well as the Archangels and the ranks of angels. With these three things, you can conjure any spirit of the planets. In the Scale of the Number Four, Agrippa lists the names of the four Princes of the Earth, and in their names you can conjure the elemental spirits. You’ve got all the information you need in those tables to come up with a decent ritual.

    To conjure the Spirit, the basic formula is a statment: “Oh [Spirit Name], I conjure you in the name of [God Name of the Sphere that rules the spirit] and in the name of [Archangel that rules the sphere] and by the powers of the [Rank of the Angels of the sphere] I conjure you; appear now before me.” You can say it a couple of times until you feel the Spirit’s presence.

    Next you simply state what you called the spirit for. Remember, it’s a person. It’s smarter than you, older than you, and much more aware of its place in the universe than you are, no matter how much we think er know. But also remember that it LOVES you, to the fullest extent of its abilities. So don’t just tell it “I want to win the lotto this Friday at 11:20” and then say goodbye. There may be some reason it can’t or won’t do so, and if you don’t listen for an answer, and actually have a conversation, bi-directional communication with the spirit, you’re not going to get anywhere.

    Undsal Sufy, author of the La Croix Petite blog notes that there should always be an exchange of “energy” when you Work with a Spirit. The way I see it, he’s talking about something similar to what I mean by a conversation. I dont’ make a habit of offering things to spirits. Most of my Work is done for knowledge, wisdom, and peace of mind over something that is troubling me. But when I want a THING to happen, or to manifest, I usually provide some form of offering for the spirit, not in an idolatrous way, but as a means of getting what I want done. when I want a spirit to show up, I’ll pour a libation, or run some current through their seal using The Box. I think it makes things easier for them to show up. So maybe he’s right, and every time you light the candles around your crystal ball, you’re making an offering to the spirits, I don’t know. But it’s something to take into account when you conjure the spirits.

    Now once you’ve talked with the spirit, you’re almost done. I ask if there’s anything I need to know from the spirit. I “hear” the voices of the spirits in visions, the pretty-mind-pictures that move by themselves, or as thoughts that originate from outside my head. Sometimes I use a pendulum, and as I hold it, I feel my heart open up, and I just know the answer to my question, without hearing anything. The same thing happens as I scry into a crystal. Sometimes I see a face or a swirl in the occlusions within the crystal, other times I don’t, but I always feel like something inside me has “opened” when the spirits are near. However you learn to communicate with the spirits will likely be different than I describe it. I am sort of stuck with the words I have to represent what I do. You will have your own words that you’re stuck with.

    Finally, I thank the Spirit for coming. If it’s the first time I’ve worked with the spirit, I say something like, in the [Names I conjured in], come again when I call your name, returning in peace and in power. Go now as you came. When I’m done I sometimes ground out by picturing myself sinking into the earth and then returning back to myself (I’m an Earth Sign, I like that), or I just let the mood dissipate on its own.

    That’s it. That’s how you conjure a spirit. It’s not hard. This being a blog post, I’m sure I missed some details. If you have questions about things I should have mentioned, let me know.

    * I’m fine with this because Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” and “I have sheep in other pens who recognise my Voice.” In John, it says, “No man comes to the Father but by me.” A friend pointed that out and asked me how I reconcile my belief that God is in the Greek Gods, and I had to explain that to understand John 14, you have to understand John 1. Jesus is the Word, the Logos. The First Father spoke, and that speech is Christ. Jesus was the Word made flesh. His Father is “the Good” of the neoplatonists. One cannot get to the Father unless you go by way of the Logos. That doesn’t mean that you’ve got to be a Christian. It means Jesus is going to call you as the Logos in whatever way he sees fit, and if you’re a sheep in another pen, or a believer of religions other than Christianity, then you’ll still be getting to the Father through the Logos when you hear his voice and respond to it. However that manifests to you.

  • Affirmations

    Have you ever heard of an obscure comic strip called Dilbert? You heard of it because it’s hip and edgy to know the publications of backwater web sites with low traffic and locally-published city newspapers, right?

    No, of course not. He’s totally mainstream, eh? Had a TV show based on it and everything. It wouldn’t have happened without Scott Adams getting syndicated. Ever wonder how he did it?

    He cheated.

    http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135/

    A friend of mine is seriously into understanding the how and why of magic. He’s forever coming up with these rationalizations for why things work. He said something about the subconscious mind (which is a myth; if it were subconscious no one would know about it) and the conscious mind working together to manifest the affirmed whatever blah blah blah.

    I couldn’t give two shits less about how things work. I’m happy with the spirit model. It’s all angels and demons and people. (People spirits only recently got the nod of approval from me, after recognizing that the spirits have been tuning my sphere for the last couple of years and I now have these weird abilities that I used to conjure Gabriel or Raphael to see manifest; in less scale than they do, for sure, but nevertheless present.)

    Scott Adams wrote his affirmations out something like 15 times daily for a year. It’s been a while since I read the blog post linked above, so my details are sketchy. He did this without any help from any spirits. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t believe in such nonsense, poor fellow.

    However, how much better would it be for magicians like ourselves? Writing out such affirmations as letters to the Genius, for example, or writing them in a book dedicated to manifestation, inscribed with the seals of the spirits of each Sphere and our own Magical Motto somewhere on the cover. It’s something I’m going to Work on. see how things go.

    Specifically, I’m going to mention two things in this endeavor:

    • Losing the 60 pounds before Jason (I’m at 225 now, for the record)
    • Manifesting the Gold Brick

    I believe the key is to keep it simple and specific. Crafting a sentence is important. One of the books I read a couple of years ago was “The Irresistable Offer.” It talks about how you’ve either made or lost a sale in the first three seconds of your presentation, or something like that. It’s not new information. Every creative writer learns the “hook” is the most important thing in your writing, whether it’s an essay or a book chapter. Not that we use the things wer know, but we learn it in High School.

    So my affirmations will be:

    “60 pounds gone by November 2009” and “Five Nines pure gold brick on my bedstand.”

    We’ll see how it turns out.

  • An Inconvenient Truth

    Jake Stratton-Kent mentioned on either Solomonic or Ritual-Magic that the magic of Abramelin is primarily demonic.

    I find it odd that so many people have missed this rather obvious point. The “Holy Guardian Angel” was launched (back) onto the occult scene via the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, as translated by Mathers and popularized in concept by Crowley. The publication of the OTO, GD, and A:.A:. literature that laid the foundation for people like Kraig to write Modern Magick really has crystallized the world view of ceremonial magicians around the particular interpretations of things made by some industrial age Victorian British folks who happened to study something of Hindu mysticism through Theosophy, an exotic fad that wasn’t much different than Spiritualism.

    In recent years, we’ve seen a new renaissance in magic, a return to the grimoires, but not as much to blindly follow them (although there are some staunch supporters of that particular vein), as much as to learn what magic looked like before it got industrialized and assembly-lined. People have realized the machinery of the Orders doesn’t work on everyone, and have gone back to researching the techniques, adapting them, but holding true to the tradition that spawned the movement.

    Thank God.

    It’s time for people to do the same with the HGA. Take a look at the Sacred Magic, and tell me the truth: is it about attaining some Western form of enlightenment? Is the being described in the text the “Atman” that Crowley claims it is? What is its function? WHY DID ABRAHAM WRITE THE BOOK FOR HIS SON?

    It is a book of demonology. K&CHGA is the means to attain the authority to conjure and command the demons. The point is not to attain spiritual enlightenment. It is to attain the power to control the world by gaining authority over the spirits that manage it.

    That, brothers and sisters, is the Great Work.

    So for all of you that are convinced that K&CHGA is your ticket to Nirvana, and the means to transcend this plane and reunite with God, you’ve missed the point of the magic entirely. I’m not saying that isn’t part of it. The point, however, is to control your world. If you’ve got K&CHGA and you aren’t working with demons (earthbound spirits) of some kind… you’re doing it wrong.

    I said it at my lecture, and I’ll say it again: If the whole point of the Great Work were to return to God and reunite with Him, then suicide would be the fastest way there. It’s obvious, I think, that the Great Work is about heading up through the heavens, gathering awareness, experience, and building a tight, close, personal relationship with God and his servants. But it’s not about re-unifying with the One. You were created separate for a reason.

    Return in Power. That’s the goal of the Work: PROJECTION of the powdered Stone. You get the authority to USE it, not to sit on the mountain and shit. Sitting on the mountain is to get you the Authority. Coming down and teaching others to use it, that’s the goal of the Hierophant. Using it is the goal of the magician.

    Now here’s an odd thing I’ve found. I Work with the Angels a lot. A whole lot more than any Goetic Spirit. They’re cool for most shit that I need done. But you know what? The celestial, planetary intelligences I work with work on ME. They change me, point things out to me, explain things to me, teach me, tune me to their harmonies. When I ask them for something here on earth, guess what they do?

    They send someone else to do it. They’re celestial. They aren’t going to Fall to Earth every time we want something from them. They’ll either send us back with the necessary attunement to our sphere to make our request manifest as a natural result of their influence on us, or they’ll send one of their Spirits. One of the spirits assigned to the earth.

    The higher you get up the magical ladder of light(s), the more authority you get, and the more discernment, and wisdom. It’s ok to use magic to do what you want, because you either have learned to use it appropriately, or you’re about to.  Either way, you’re the winner. And the way the universe works, when you won, everyone else doesn’t lose; they have an equal chance at winning by following your example.

    So anyway… The HGA. The Genius. The Nativity Angel. The Acquired Supernatural Assistant. Different names for spirits that all share a common ancestral revelator. The further back you go, the more you find they aren’t there to bring you enlightenment alone; they are there to provide you with the means to DO MAGIC.

    And that, my friends, is the Great Work.

  • Genius-Evil Daimon Names!

    Give me your times and dates and locations, and I will give you the POWER to control your world!

    Check this out:

     
    Not that impressed? In three minutes or less, I can now generate the name of your Genius. It just doesn’t get much better than that. Excel Wizardry. By the Power of Microsoft, and the Wisdom of Agrippa, I grant you your universe on a fucking platter.
    What good is a Genius and Evil Genius Name, you ask? Well shit! Glad you asked! From the Greek Magical Papyri:

    […] he sends dreams, he brings women, men without the use of magical material, he kills, he destroys, he stirs up winds from the earth, he carries / gold, silver, bronze, and he gives them to you whenever the need arises.  And he frees from bonds a person chained in prison, he opens doors, he causes invisibility so that no one can see you at all, he is a bringer of fire, he brings water, wine, bread and [whatever] you wish in the way of foods:  olive oil, vinegar with the single exception of fish–and he will bring plenty of vegetables, / whatever kind you wish, but as for pork, you must not ever tell him to bring this at all!  And when you want to give a [dinner], tell him so. Conjure up in your mind any suitable room and order him to prepare it for a banquet quickly and without delay.  At once he will bestow chambers with golden ceilings, and you will see their walls covered with marble and you consider these things partly real / and partly just illusionary and costly wine, as is meet to cap a dinner splendidly.  He will quickly bring daimons, and for you he will adorn these servants with sashes.  These things he does quickly.  And [as soon as] you order [him] to perform a service, he will do so, and you will see him excelling in other things:  He stops ships and [again] / releases them, he stops very many evil [daimons], he checks wild beasts and will quickly break the teeth of fierce reptiles, he puts dogs to sleep and renders them voiceless. He changes into whatever form [of beast] you want:  one that flies, swims, a quadruped, a reptile.  He will carry you [into] the air, and again hurl you into the billows / of the sea’s current and into the waves of the sea; he will quickly freeze rivers and seas and in such a way that you can run over them firmly, as you want.  And [especially] will he stop, if ever you wish it, the sea-runnning foam, and whenever you wish to bring down stars and whenever you wish to make [warm things] cold and cold things / warm, he will light lamps and extinguish them again.  And he will shake walls and [cause] them to blaze with fire; he will serve you suitably for [whatever] you have in mind, O [blessed] initiate of the sacred magic, and will accomplish it for you, this most powerful assistant, who is also the only lord of the air.  And the gods will agree to everything, for without him / nothing happens.

    For anyone who’s read the Book of Abramelin, this should be a no-fucking-shit moment of comprehension.

    Quit making your HGA into a fucking guru that sits high upon a mountain top. Yeah, that’s part of it… but shit, it can do a whole lot more.